Development of thermo-elastic tapered and spherical superelements

Special superelements are often used to improve the computational efficiency and improve accuracy of finite element modeling. Structures with tapered and spherical geometry exist in many engineering problems. In this work, special tapered and spherical superelements are presented that can be used for modeling of tapered and spherical bodies in thermo mechanical analyses with computational efficiency. The performance of these superelements under thermal and structural loads is demonstrated by presenting several examples and comparing the results with those from conventional 3D brick elements, which shows high accuracy at reduced computational cost.